All I Heard
by Skylark Evanson
Summary: All I heard was the sounds of the night.


**A/N: Not enough room on this couch for me and writing and my house is overcrowded. And this will continue on until… next week. Kevin's POV.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own.**

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><p><strong><span>All I Heard<span>**

It's this raw emptiness that makes me want to die, that makes me perfectly aware of how I'm never going to be good enough. Not like I wasn't already aware of it in the first place. I can't do anything right. Never have been able to.

I'm just useless, that's all. Some things never change. I'll always be useless, and I'll never be good enough.

Ben was the one who said the bar would be a good idea. Me, Coop, Ben, and Alan. A bar. Ben was paying. It was like Mr. Smoothy, but backwards. I usually ended up with the smoothie tab, but now he was picking up my bar tab. Even when he knew my alcohol problem. My _severe_alcohol problem.

And he wasn't going to stop me from drinking my life away. He was going to fuel it to help me forget all the hurt. He was trying to help in the only way he knew how: letting me drink until I couldn't feel the pain anymore. And getting that way is the only chance I ever have at getting to sleep at night, at living another day.

Ben knows how bad it is sometimes. He just nurtures me out of my hangover to do it over again the next night, always picking up the tab, always managing to get me home in the morning. He's taking care of me more than I ever thought he would. It's what best friends are for, I guess. Not like I would really know.

When it's one too many, I end up outside, keeled over and losing a little bit of the booze to my splintering skull and nauseous stomach. The grates to the sewers welcome it like an old friend. And it's always Cooper picking me up and pushing me back towards Ben's house so I can crash on his couch for the night. It's almost funny how I never end up on that couch.

Alan tries to talk sense into me. He's a good kid to have around, but he isn't much fun. He's always the designated driver despite the fact that the car never gets anywhere until I finish walking and puking for the next twenty blocks and turn onto her street and stumble onward like there's a life worth living. Then Alan shows up in the car, Cooper in the passenger seat, Ben catching up on foot because he knows he can.

My head's usually ready to burst by then. The contents of my stomach have been strewn into the street, and I'm sick enough to make the bubonic plague look like a common cold. My eyes are usually bloodshot, my heart rate is nearly flat, my legs wobble more than jello. I can feel that familiar ache in my chest of the booze's effects wearing off. The hurt comes back in full force and I can remember all of it as clear as day and I wish my mind were fuzzy enough to block out all the memories.

Ben's usually caught up when we're about ten houses away from hers. He doesn't say anything, doesn't try to stop me. He just lets me cope how I do. He keeps his hands in his pockets and watched the sky as intently as he would an episode of Sumo Slammers. He doesn't say anything. Cooper and Alan have usually stopped trying by then. It's just quiet as I crawl along with tears ready to burn my eyes and the longing and pain searing my heart.

The car is thrown into park. Cooper and Alan stay out there. The window gets rolled up. Some music gets turned on. They grow quiet.

I stagger up to the front door. I don't even need to try. I just push the door in and it opens without resistance. I have to lean against the doorframe to regain what little balance my equilibrium will retain. Everything can look topsy-turvy, but it isn't and every piece of this reality is the same as it was yesterday and the day before that and the day before that and the day before that because it's a static world. Nothing will ever change.

I push on, into that room, and look at all the withering furniture beneath the ghost-like coverings. Dust thickly layers everything in a glaze of gray. I reach for the banister on the stairs and keep my balance on that as Ben stands in the doorway, watching guard in a sort of way. His hands stay in his pockets.

I can never forget her. The pain intensifies and my surroundings focus long enough for me to be reminded of the emptiness inside of me, how raw the hurt is, how long it's been.

The alcohol doesn't help much since it wears off before I even get here. Maybe the burning helps. Maybe dropping the inhibitions can fix something. Maybe I need to sleep more. But the drinking helps... It helps so much... It makes it all more bearable, dulls the aches of loss and the stains of pain.

I cling onto that banister and send a little prayer to whoever's watching over me. God? Nah. He has nothing to do with anything. If he did, he would make this world a damn happy place. It's not, is it? Sometimes I pray to Ben. Not bowing down to him, but praying like you'd pray to a real deity. If any exist.

I pray for her to come back to me. So I don't have to be so alone. So I'm not hurting so badly. So she can be with me.

Somehow, I end up on the floor, sleeping there for the night as Ben pulls a blanket out of a drawer from the only not dusty table. He'll put it over me and wait for me to cry myself to sleep before locking the door up and leaving. He comes back in the morning and gets me up with a nice cup of black coffee and a friendly smile even when I threaten to kill him for letting me get so drunk.

But more than once, I've woken up in the middle of the night and listened- just listened -to the sounds of the darkness. Creaking wood shifting according to gravity. Birds flitting around to find nests. Rustling leaves and branches rapping against windows. Sounds. Noises. Life.

"Gwen?" I ask once for her. I always know I will never get a response. She's gone. Left me. Left me so she didn't have to be more like a babysitter than a lover. She left to be free. From me. Because I was overbearing, overprotective, too needy, too loving.

All I heard was the sounds of the night. No dainty footsteps, no swishing of long red hair, no whispers of "I love you", no desperate breaths of air between desperate kisses. Nothing.

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><p><strong>AN: Review?**

**~Sky**


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